TEL AVIV: The Israeli military said on Monday its troops demolished the West Bank home of a Palestinian accused of killing an Israeli in a stabbing attack earlier this year.
The military said that during the demolition, clashes erupted between Israeli forces and about 150 Palestinians who it said threw rocks and burned tires.
The military said it responded with “riot dispersal means,” which typically refers to tear gas and stun grenades.
Mofeed Dweikat, the mayor of Rojeeb, where the home was located, said troops tore down the two-story home and that three people were lightly wounded by rubber-coated bullets in the clashes that ensued.
Israel accuses the Palestinian, Khalil Dweikat, 46, of stabbing to death a 39-year-old Israeli man in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva in August.
Israeli police said at the time that Dweikat, who had entered Israel from the occupied West Bank on a work permit, fled the scene.
He was later apprehended and is being prosecuted by Israeli authorities.
The military said the home demolition came after an Israeli court rejected an appeal by the alleged attacker's family to block the move.
Israel says it carries out home demolitions as a deterrent against attacks by Palestinians.
Critics say the measure is a form of collective punishment.
Also on Monday, Jewish settler leaders prayed for US President Donald Trump's reelection, citing his support for Israel, during a ceremony at a tomb in the occupied West Bank.
“We have come to bless President Trump, both for the past, to thank him, but also for the future, that he succeeds in the coming election,” Yishai Fleisher, spokesman for the Hebron settlers, said at the Cave of the Patriarchs burial site.
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Mofeed Dweikat, the mayor of Rojeeb, said troops tore down the two-story home and that three people were lightly wounded by rubber-coated bullets in the clashes that ensued.
Hoping to encourage coexistence between Jews and Palestinians, the Trump administration has named the Israeli-Arab rapprochement that it has been brokering the “Abraham Accords.”
But Trump, a Republican running against Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden in Tuesday's election, has been shunned by Palestinians for perceived bias since he broke with global consensus by recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.
His administration has also softened US disapproval of Israel's settlements on land where the Palestinians want to establish a state, and which most world powers deem illegal.
A rabbi officiating at Monday's ceremony prayed for Trump to secure "four more years," citing the president's "commitment to the preservation and strengthening of the people of Israel, the state of Israel and the land of Israel".
A Trump peace plan stirred some settler anger, however, by proposing that Palestinians get a state on 70 percent of the West Bank.
